15 Days and Counting! William and Kate Updates!

So, are we all going to get up at 4 a.m. to watch the coverage of the Royal Wedding?  Hmmmm, I may have to think about that one!   I'm thinking that I can watch most of it live, and still make it to work at noon, depending on whether the time difference is 5 hours or 6.  I think it's 5 during daylight savings time.  So if the ceremony is at 11 a.m., and the guests will begin arriving between 8 and 10--wow, that makes it really early!
This morning I've been looking at all the information online about the wedding.  I found a VERY interesting itinerary of the day on the official website.  It has information on their wedding party, which will be Kate's sister Phillipa as Maid of Honor and William's brother Harry as Best Man.  The rest of the "wedding party" are children!  Interesting!  Four girls ages 7, 8, 3, and 3, and two boys 8, and 10.  They are officially called bridesmaids and page boys.  One adult attendant on each side and the rest children?  Hmmmmm, I think this makes me glad I'm not coordinating weddings in the UK!  I have enough trouble getting grown ups down the aisle sometimes!! :)
Here's a very informative link for information on wedding traditions in the UK.  I was surprised at how many differences there were! 
Kate and William came up with their guest list just like all of us commoners.  The couple made their list, each family made their lists, and then they put them all together.  Another little fact I found very interesting--they have invited 1900 guests to the ceremony, 650 guests to the lunch reception at Buckingham Palace (hosted by Her Royal Majesty!) and then dinner and dancing for 300 guests in the evening (hosted by Prince Charles).  Wow!  We could have had their reception at Aberdeen!  Ha! 
Most interesting though, was the information on their wedding cake!  They have hired Fiona Cairns, a well known cake designer in Lancastershire, England.   Fiona is apparently the UK's answer to Sylvia Weinstock, Colette Peters and Ron Ben Israel!  She has some beautiful pictures on her website of things that she has done.  The Royal wedding cake is going to be done in the Joseph Lambeth technique which is very popular in England as well as in Australia and New Zealand.  It is SO beautiful, and SO delicate!

The Lambeth technique involves delicate piping and intricate details.  Either in all white or colors.

I have a sneaking suspicion that after the 29th of April, our local cake people will need to brush up on the Lambeth technique!
The other interesting fact about the cake is that it will be made of fruitcake, which is the traditional wedding cake in England.  The tradition of putting a piece of wedding cake under your pillow to dream about who you would marry involved the fruitcake, rather than our traditional American wedding cake.  Much less messy I would think!  It's usually covered with marzipan which is made from almond paste, and applied similar to rolled fondant--but it is much more tasty!  (Incidentally, the one plus that fondant has over marzipan is that it can be white, whereas marzipan is a light beige color, with white royal icing on it though, it can be really beautiful!)
In the coming two weeks we'll talk more about the big wedding, and how it will affect our wedding traditions here. 
What aspect of the wedding are YOU most excited about?

Guest counts, Seating charts, and other Painful Wedding Things

Here at Aberdeen Manor, we believe strongly in the power of the seating chart. There are a number of reasons that we feel that some sort of seating assignments are essential. First of all, guests like to know that they have a place reserved for them. If you don't assign tables, they will all sit down and not move, and your cocktail hour will consist of everyone sitting at tables holding their places. Boring! The biggest thing I see is that if you don't have assigned seating, the people who you want to have close in the best seats, don't get there, because they are usually the last to arrive at the reception. Yes, we can put "reserved" signs on a couple tables, but then, who sits at those tables and how do they know they are supposed to? Another issue we see is that when you have someone attend who didn't send back their RSVP, we have no way to know where there might be empty seats. These folks who didn't send back their RSVP, if they get there earlier, get a seat, and your good guests who sent back their little cards, are seatless.

Some sort of seating assignment is absolutely essential. Guests want to know that they have a place reserved for them that they can land. They are much more comfortable and sociable if they are sure that they have a seat that they don't have to stand guard over. So how is this most easily accomplished? Well, first of all, both families need to be on the same page about when guests need to reply (this is usually stated on the response card) and once that date has passed, someone needs to start calling people who haven't responded to find out if they are coming or not. The goal is to get a good, solid final count as soon as possible after the cut off date. I say someone, because the bride and groom and their parents are NOT the people to do it. This is what you have attendants and best friends for! If the bride calls, she will be thrown into a 45 minute discussion of the wedding plans, honeymoon destination, yada yada yada. No, you want someone who doesn't know these people to call. They will be able to do the entire list in the time that it would take the bride to make one or two calls.
So what to say? "Hi, this is Mary Jo, I'm calling for Heather Jones and Sean Smith. They were concerned because their wedding is fast approaching and they hadn't heard back from you yet. They wondered if maybe you hadn't received your invitation. Oh, you did receive it? Wonderful! Will you be able to attend? And how many of you will there be? Three? Great! Thanks so much, we'll see you at the wedding. Buhbye!
It's always nice to give them a little "out", and frankly, there is always the possibility that for some reason they didn't receive their invitation. There's no need to scold them for not responding, it's just important to find out whether they will be there or not.
Unfortunately, guests will string you along until the day of the wedding if you don't put your foot down and require that they give you a yes or a no. It seems that the people that are the ones that string you along are usually the ones that don't think they will be able to make it, but there's a little chance that they might. You need to pin them down and get either a yes or no from them, no more wishy washy, you have to give a count, and you need to know if they can come or not. Don't let them squeak out with a "maybe I can make it, I'll let you know in a couple days". You need to get a YES or a NO from them right then and there. Honestly, if you have sent your invitations out six to eight weeks before the wedding like most couples do, they have had plenty of time to figure out whether they can come to the wedding or not. Nine times out of ten, they will be able to give you an answer if you press them. Granted, there are circumstances where people just don't know. They are waiting to see if Great Aunt Tillie will be able to travel, or their daughter is supposed to deliver imminently but they don't know exactly when. Unfortunately, sometimes they just need to call it and make a decision. I'll warn you, most of the guests that are on the fence will end up being no's. Now, do you want to pay for the meal and bar for people who end up not coming? Of course not! And we don't want you to have to pay for people that don't end up coming either. So work hard at getting definitive answers from guests once the deadline has passed.
Once you have a good solid number you can begin to assign tables. You don't have to assign individual seats, just the table. Even before you get your final number you can start dividing the guests who have already responded that they are coming, into groups of 8. The easiest way I find to do this is to put the names on the place cards, without the table number, as they respond, and then just make little stacks. Once you have your final number and everyone is divided into little stacks of 8 (or 7 or 9 if necessary, or even 10 if you are having over about 250) then you can go back and write the actual table numbers on the cards. Once you give us a number we can make up a room diagram for you that shows where all the tables will be located, and their numbers.
Some of you that have been in our shop lately may have noticed the seating scroll that we have. It's a beautiful piece to add to your reception, and the best thing about it, is that it comes with a computer program to do your seating assignments that makes short work of the whole thing. You email the list to them through the program and your seating chart comes back to us a couple days before the wedding, ready to go on the scroll stand! Pretty slick!
However you accomplish this, you'll be glad you put the effort into it. It's probably one of the crumbiest jobs of planning your wedding, but it's also one of the most essential and important. Your guests will appreciate knowing that they have a place, and we at Aberdeen will be able to set your tables exactly to your room diagram so that you don't have a lot of extra seats that make it appear that lots of guests are missing. It will be appreciated all around. So bite the bullet, and get going on those table assignments! :)

Guest Counts

How do you keep your guest list from climbing out of control? The number of guests at your wedding is the biggest driver of the total cost. Each guest you add makes your food and beverage higher, but it also comes with other more subtle expenses. There are the additional invitations and favors, wedding programs, centerpieces, possibly rental dishes or flatware, linens and/or chair covers and sashes, and sometimes the cost of a larger space for the ceremony and reception. More guests also mean more attendants, additional ushers, etc. That means more attendant gifts, more boutonnieres and bouquets, more people at the rehearsal dinner. Additional guests means more expense.
Generally the food and beverage alone are about 60 percent of your total wedding costs. So what can you do to keep those numbers from going crazy? First, realize that your guests fall into groups that make ever enlarging circles around you. The first and smallest circle which is the one closest to you, is your immediate family, moving out from there, you have your extended family, your very close friends, your not so close friends, your work associates, your acquaintances, etc. Sometimes it's easier to have a very small wedding than it is to have a medium sized wedding, because of the way that these groups get larger and larger. What makes it difficult is that if you invite just a couple guests from one of these groups, you sometimes need to invite the entire group in order to not hurt any feelings.
So what can you do to limit the size (and therefore cost) of your wedding? Here are some ideas:
1. Don't invite anyone you haven't talked to in the last 5 years. (If you haven't talked to your second cousin once removed in 5 years, they probably are not going to notice that they aren't invited, they probably don't even know you are getting married!)
2. Don't invite anyone you wouldn't invite to your home for dinner. (In a sense, that's what you are doing, you are just having it at a bigger place that can hold more people at one time, but you are inviting them for dinner. So if it isn't someone you would want to have come to your home for dinner, then why would you invite them to your reception?)
3. Don't feel obligated to invite people just because THEY think they should be invited. It seems like as soon as you get engaged, there are folks who all of a sudden think you are their best friend, and they start talking about attending your wedding like they have already received their invitation; and you had no intention of inviting them! Don't be guilted into inviting them. Make up a list shortly after you become engaged, and only add the guests you may have honestly forgotten. Work associates are notorious for this ploy. If you feel that an explanation is necessary, (which it isn't, because they are being very rude to assume this) just say something like "We would have loved to invite all of our friends, but we both have large families, and our venue just wasn't big enough to invite everyone we would have liked to invite."
4. Work associates can be a huge group, how do you limit them? Try this. Only invite the people that you have done things socially with. Many people work in large departments with lots of people. Obviously they want to invite the few people they are really close with, but not the whole department. This makes it much easier, and you can always tell those others in the department that this was your criteria to limit the numbers. They really shouldn't ask, but if they do, they should understand that you can't invite all of them. Obviously, if you only have 4 people in your office, you might want to invite all or none of them, just to keep peace. You have to use your best judgment.
5. Don't feel that you have to invite all of your single friends to bring a guest. If they are in a committed, long term relationship, you can send an invitation to the partner. But to invite a single, unattached friend to scare up a date for the evening really isn't necessary. It's really a pretty awkward "date" anyway.
6. Don't invite children. It's certainly your option to have your flower girl and ringbearer at the reception, but you don't have to invite all the children of all the guests you are inviting. Children add significantly to the cost. Even if they are having children's meals, they still are generally counted in the open bar charges. Obviously you may lose guests you would have liked to have attend over this one, but if it is someone you really want there, you can always offer to help them find a competent sitter (if they are from out of town and don't know anyone for example).
The biggest problem I see with this one is guests who decide that you must have forgotten to mention their darling children on the invitation and they decide to bring them anyway. It takes a lot of tact, diplomacy, and guts to call up a guest and tell them that their children weren't invited. Unfortunately people just don't realize any more that if their child's name isn't on the invitation, that they are not invited. So the decision you have to make is whether you are going to stick to your guns and not have children, or are you going to let them get away with their rudeness? Personally, I think you can call them and just say something like"We would love to have your dear little Susie and Johnny at our wedding, but we are limited on the number of guests we could invite, and unfortunately it didn't allow us room to invite everyone's children. It would be very awkward to explain to all the guests who are not bringing their children " If they say well then they just aren't going to be coming then you need to reply "I'm SO sorry to hear that, we would have really loved to have you and your wife/husband attend. Please let us know if anything changes. We'll miss you being there." Stick to your guns!
I hope that this has helped with this tough area. If anyone has any additional ideas of ways to do this, please, jump right in!